A Seacoast entrepreneur says the construction of a data center in Nottingham would be a win for the town.
Thomas Moulton is proposing to build the facility on a stretch of Route 4. The project’s announcement is stirring opposition from some residents, who warn that data centers draw huge amounts of power and water.
But Moulton says he hasn’t been able to share all the positives the project could bring, including increased tax revenues.
“I haven’t even had my voice heard yet, and everybody is coming out of the woodwork, and they want to lynch me,” he said. “It’s like, ‘Come on people, relax.’ ”
The Nottingham Planning Board is holding its first public hearing on the proposal Wednesday evening. All the attention and online criticism led authorities to move the meeting to a larger venue, and it will be held at the Nottingham School at 6:30 p.m.
Ellen White, town administrator in Nottingham, said the town has received an outpouring of public response to the proposal.
“It’s been statewide,” she said. “Everything has been in opposition to it.”
The town is aware of a planned protest outside of Wednesday’s meeting.
Moulton is coming before the planning board for what is called a “conceptual consultation” for a data center at the Nottingham Business Park. It’s a preliminary step in which the board and the applicant will discuss it in conceptual form, White said.
“It’s a request for an informal conversation with the planning board: ‘Hey, this is my idea,’ ” White said.
The discussion itself is not a public hearing. Town residents will be allowed to comment during a general public comment session near the end of the meeting.
Nottingham Business Park is located off Route 4. The land in question was once a proposed water bottling site for USA Springs, a controversial project in the early 2000s that never came to fruition.
Nottingham sits about 30 minutes from both Concord and Portsmouth. According to the Strafford Regional Planning Commission, which provides planning services to Nottingham on contractual basis, the town was the first municipality in the U.S. to institute mandatory recycling.
